On Saturday, 28 March, the Egyptian government begins implementing the decision to close restaurants and shops at nine in the evening, while controversy over the decision is mounting, as it threatens the fate of thousands of workers on evening shifts and inflicts major economic damage on business owners.
For its part, the government says that the decision aims to rationalise energy consumption, coinciding with the continuing regional escalation between the United States, Israel and Iran and the impact on gas imports to Cairo.
The measures include closing shops, malls, restaurants and cafés daily at nine in the evening, extended until ten o’clock on Thursdays and Fridays; closing the government district in the New Administrative Capital at six in the evening; in addition to switching off the lighting of billboards on roads, as well as reducing the lighting of streets and public squares by 50% during night hours.
Some ministries are also studying applying a remote work system for employees of the state’s administrative apparatus for one or two days a week, with the exception of vital sectors such as factories, health units and productive projects, to ensure continuity of work without affecting basic services.
The measures, which the government describes as exceptional, come nearly a month after Tel Aviv’s announcement at the beginning of this March that it was suspending natural gas exports to Egypt indefinitely, which led to the halt of about 1.1 billion cubic feet per day that had been pumped to Cairo through the Israeli pipeline, directly affecting domestic consumption.
Despite the government’s earlier reassurances about securing the local market’s gas needs, relying on alternative import sources alongside local production, as well as contracting for shipments of liquefied gas and concluding long-term supply agreements with global companies, the latest measures reveal, according to observers, the depth of the crisis that the Egyptian energy system is going through as a result of the war.
Egypt’s natural gas consumption is estimated at about 6.8 billion cubic feet per day, against local production of only about 5 billion, which entrenches a structural deficit in the market.
Between Rationalisation and the Economic Impact
In recent years, local natural gas production has declined as a result of falling output at some fields and a growing rate of consumption, which pushed Egypt to rely increasingly on imports to bridge the gap between production and domestic consumption. During 2025, Egypt’s imports of liquefied natural gas rose significantly in an attempt to make up for the local shortage, reaching about 9 million tonnes in 2025, compared with about 2.7 million tonnes in 2024.
Commenting on the latest government measures, economic researcher Elhamy El-Merghany says that “the crisis goes beyond a mere rise in fuel prices and extends to other energy sources, such as electricity and gas, which prompted the government to announce a series of temporary austerity measures.”
El-Merghany explains that after fuel prices were raised in October 2025, the Prime Minister announced that the current increase would be the last, but he soon backtracked on this decision, announcing a new rise in fuel prices in step with the repercussions of the war.
He adds, speaking to Zawia3: “According to the data contained in the report of the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company for the 2023/2024 fiscal year, shops consume only 5.4% of total electrical energy, while public lighting accounts for only 2.7%, which makes measures such as setting shop closing times and switching off the lighting of advertisements on roads insufficient to achieve large energy savings.”
By contrast, the government and its affiliated sectors consume about 10.4% of electricity according to the Holding Company’s report, while 27% goes to the industrial sector and 37.2% to household consumption, which raises questions about the effectiveness of the current measures in addressing the core of the energy crisis, according to El-Merghany.
El-Merghany explains that data from the 2022/2023 economic census and other sources show that there are about 400,000 establishments operating in the restaurant and café sector, including 180,000 restaurants and 220,000 coffee shops, cafés and cafeterias, and the sector’s annual size exceeds EGP 104 billion, while 48.5% of restaurant establishments are unregistered, 90% of them are individual establishments, and 99% operate with fewer than ten workers. The figures indicate that 710,000 workers are employed in the restaurant sector alone, while no accurate data are available on the number of workers in cafés.
On the possible repercussions of the decisions for citizens, El-Merghany says that there are about 1.7 million retail shops employing 4.1 million workers and owned by 1.9 million people, so the decision setting the closing time at nine in the evening may affect more than 7.5 million people, employers and workers alike, with direct consequences for their incomes and their families.
El-Merghany stresses that the government is indeed facing a real problem in the energy file, but the measures taken do not address the core of the problem or touch the roots of the crisis; rather, they remain circumstantial solutions that are insufficient to address the imbalances in the structure of energy consumption or to strengthen national productive capacities.
For his part, Dr Khaled El-Shafei, an economic expert and director of the Al-Assema Center for Economic and Strategic Studies, believes that the decision reflects a major problem related to the nature of the government’s management of the crisis. He questions its effectiveness in achieving its economic objectives, especially given the existence of other possible alternatives for rationalising energy consumption, pointing out that the decision comes shortly after the months of Ramadan and Eid, during which working hours extended into the early hours of the following day, in addition to Egypt’s different nature in terms of night-time activity.
El-Shafei stresses, speaking to Zawia3, the need for the government to adopt a more comprehensive and clearer approach, one that goes beyond the current quick reactions to global crises, such as the rise in oil and gas prices, criticising the paradoxes in the management of the economic file: the state’s effort to save about EGP 36 billion by raising fuel prices is offset by a much greater burden resulting from the decision to raise the interest rate by 1%, which costs the budget about EGP 120 billion in debt service, as he described it.
El-Shafei warns of the possible repercussions for vital sectors, foremost among them tourism, because of the early closure of places important to this sector such as restaurants and cafés, pointing out that this closure may conflict with the state’s targets of increasing tourism revenues to $25 billion.
He notes that reducing working hours raises practical questions about the market’s ability to meet citizens’ needs at night, even with the growing reliance on digital services and remote work, calling on the government to look for alternative solutions that do not place additional burdens on citizens, and stressing that the current stage requires translating the fruits of economic reform into a tangible improvement in citizens’ lives, instead of continuing to pressure them.
The Structural Distortion in the Energy System
Engineer Mostafa Madbouly, the Prime Minister, had confirmed that the natural gas import bill has risen sharply since the outbreak of the war, reaching $1.65 billion per month compared with about $560 million before the war, an increase of $1.1 billion, to meet electricity needs, run factories and ensure the continuity of production and jobs, pointing out that crude oil prices have seen record rises, from $69 to $100, with expectations that prices will reach $150 to $200 per barrel if the escalation continues.
For his part, MP Mohamed Farid, a member of the House of Representatives for the Coordination of Party Youth Leaders and Politicians, believes that the jump in the natural gas import bill confirms that we are facing a real crisis whose depth no one disputes. Farid adds, in a post on his official Facebook page, that the question that still has no answer is: if we know the cost of imports in dollars, what are the expected savings from the measures announced by the government?
The Egyptian parliamentarian stresses that the taxpayer has the right to know the estimated savings from each measure, and that there should be a clear framework for evaluating the success of these policies, emphasising that in the absence of such a framework, the decisions turn into a mere open-ended response with no standard by which to judge them.
Farid believes that the burden of the crisis is being distributed in an unbalanced way. At the government level, the most efficient measure, remote work, has been postponed, despite a previous successful experience on which it would have been more useful to build immediately instead of deferring it for further study. He added that this measure may achieve limited savings but comes at a direct cost to income and jobs, in a market that already suffers from low wages and poor job quality.
He stresses that this crisis reveals a structural distortion in the energy system and the economy’s recurrent exposure to any global disruption, and that what is required, alongside managing the moment, is to work on real reform of the energy structure and the business environment, to prepare the Egyptian economy for the post-war period, so that citizens do not find themselves facing a bill of domestic recession on top of the bill of the external shock.
The government had approved a new increase in fuel and petroleum product prices at rates ranging between 14% and 30%, the third consecutive increase in the period from April 2025 to March 2026.
Night-Time Working Hours and Social Security
The Egyptian government has resorted to a policy of electricity load-shedding to rationalise energy consumption in recent years. In July 2023, as a result of severe heatwaves, high demand for electricity and fuel shortages, the Cabinet announced specific schedules for rotating power cuts in the various governorates, with the aim of ensuring continuity of operation and avoiding random outages.
In 2024, the duration of load-shedding increased to three hours a day instead of two hours in some areas to cope with the growing pressure on the grid.
In the same year, the government decided to close shops, with the exception of restaurants and supermarkets, at 10 pm, extended until 11 pm on Thursdays and Fridays, while restaurants and cafés closed at 12 midnight, with delivery services continuing 24 hours.
In 2025, the government stopped the load-shedding plan after the Ministry of Finance announced the payment of between 25% and 30% of the arrears owed to foreign partners in the petroleum sector. The Ministries of Electricity and Petroleum also announced work on initiatives to generate electricity by multiple and cleaner methods instead of burning petroleum, among other electricity interconnection projects, to increase energy production in the coming years. Despite this, the government has once again returned to the load-shedding and energy rationalisation plan amid the ongoing war.
For her part, Mona Ezzat, a researcher on economic and social affairs, believes that many Arab and European capitals adopt early closing times for shops and restaurants starting from seven or eight in the evening, but Egypt is distinguished by a lifestyle that extends over 24 hours, as the continuous vitality of the Egyptian street is seen as an essential part of daily culture.
Mona Ezzat points out, speaking to Zawia3, that the opening hours of shops and restaurants are linked to Egyptians’ social habits, as many prefer to stay up late and go out at night, sitting in cafés and restaurants until late hours, which is reflected positively in buying and selling activity and in shop owners’ daily income.
Mona Ezzat explains that the decision to close at nine in the evening may cause financial losses for shop and restaurant owners and affect economic activity, especially amid a recession from which the sector already suffers.
In this context, Lamia Lotfy, a researcher on women’s issues and executive director of the Rural Women Initiative, believes that the decisions to rationalise electricity consumption, foremost among them the early closure of shops, directly affect community security.
She explains, speaking to Zawia3, that reducing night-time working hours harms not only workers on evening shifts, but extends to general secondary school students who have to stay out of their homes late, as streets empty of passers-by because of the closure of shops, restaurants and workshops raise the level of risk for citizens who have to return from their work and errands at night.
Lamia Lotfy points out that Egyptian society has become accustomed to what she called “shared protection”, whereby people’s presence in the streets forms an automatic safety factor that limits dangerous behaviour, but the decline of this presence, coinciding with the limited number of security patrols compared with the scale of need, weakens the sense of safety, especially in emergencies such as going to hospitals or pharmacies at night.
What about the Alternatives?
Lamia Lotfy, executive director of the Rural Women Initiative, puts forward practical alternatives, citing the initiative’s experience of relying on solar energy in a remote area, despite its high cost, which reached about EGP 170,000 to 180,000 to power basic needs.
Lamia Lotfy believes that the state’s role should focus on facilitating the procedures for switching to alternative energy and providing easy instalment schemes, instead of contenting itself with rationalisation policies, criticising the bureaucratic restrictions and current financing conditions that hinder the spread of these solutions. She concludes that achieving a balance between energy rationalisation and ensuring safety requires more comprehensive policies that put citizens’ needs at the top of the priorities.
A research paper entitled “The Mounting Burden of Electricity: Can Egypt Find a Way Out of Rising Prices?”, issued by the Alternative Policy Solutions centre, attributes one of the main reasons for the rise in electricity prices in Egypt to the growing reliance on high-cost inputs, foremost among them natural gas and fuel oil, pointing to the decline in local gas production in recent years, against continued growth in demand, which has led to a widening gap between production and consumption.
The paper explains that to bridge this gap the government previously relied on load-shedding policies, which led to popular anger, prompting the government to turn towards increasing natural gas imports.
The study recommends expanding the use of solar energy through investment in medium- and large-scale plants, to break the cycle of continuously rising electricity prices, in a way that allows needs to be met with higher efficiency and at lower cost, pointing out that incentives, such as customs exemptions and tax reductions on basic inputs, could contribute significantly to reducing the overall cost of these projects.
The early closure decisions reveal structural imbalances in Egypt’s energy system and economy: between the growing reliance on gas imports, the decline in local production and the absence of integrated policies for managing energy demand, temporary measures turn into a direct burden on broad sectors of citizens and of workers in the informal economy and service activities.
